Automatic Drip Coffee Maker

The automatic drip coffee maker, or filter coffee machine, is the most common way to brew coffee at home in much of the world. It heats water, sprinkles it over ground coffee in a filter basket, and lets the coffee drip into a jug. It’s really an automated pour-over. The machine does the pouring, so what’s left to you is the coffee, the grind, the ratio and the water, and that’s where most of the difference between a good pot and a dull one lies. Here’s how to get the best from one.

The short version

• About 55–60 g of coffee per litre of water: the SCA’s Golden Cup ratio.
• Medium grind, a touch finer for cone baskets.
• Fresh, filtered, cold water in the reservoir.
• A good machine heats to about 90–96°C and finishes in 4 to 8 minutes.
• Drink it fresh, and clean and descale the machine.

How does a drip coffee maker work?

1. The reservoir holds cold water.
2. A heater warms the water and carries it up to a shower head above the basket.
3. The water drips onto the coffee in a paper or permanent filter, seeps through it, and drips into the jug.
4. A hot plate or a thermal jug keeps the coffee warm.

It’s percolation: each drop of water passes through the coffee once, as in a pour-over. Machines differ mainly in how hot they get the water, how evenly the shower head spreads it, and how long the brew takes.

How much coffee should I use?

The SCA’s Golden Cup standard is 55 g of coffee per litre of water, plus or minus 10%. That’s roughly 1:18. Many people like it a little stronger, at 60–65 g per litre. SCA-certified machines must print a recommended grind and this 55 g per litre ratio in their instructions, so check your manual too.

Water	Coffee at 55 g/L	Coffee at 60 g/L
500 ml	About 28 g	30 g
1 litre	55 g	60 g
1.25 litres	About 69 g	75 g

Weigh the coffee if you can: scoop sizes vary a lot.

What grind size should I use?

Medium, like coarse sand, for most flat-bottomed baskets. Go a little finer for a cone-shaped basket, and a little coarser for a big batch with a high dose. If it’s bitter, go coarser; if it’s thin and sour, go finer.

How do you make better drip coffee, step by step?

1. Fill the reservoir with fresh, cold, filtered water.
2. Rinse the paper filter with hot water if you can.
3. Add the coffee, about 55–60 g per litre, and level it.
4. Start the machine and let it run.
5. Stir the jug and serve fresh.

Brew mode on this page times a typical brew for you.

Why does my drip coffee taste bad?

Problem	Likely cause	Try
Weak, sour	Too little coffee, too coarse, or water not hot enough	More coffee or a finer grind; consider an SCA-certified machine
Bitter	Too fine, or left on the hot plate	Coarser grind; use a thermal jug or drink it sooner
Flat, stale	Old coffee, or a scaled-up machine	Fresher coffee; descale the machine
Slow to brew	Scale build-up	Descale, following the maker’s instructions

How do you clean and descale a drip machine?

Wash the jug and basket after every use. Descale the machine regularly, following the maker’s instructions: how often depends on how hard your water is and how much you brew. Filtered or softened water slows scaling down.

What about batch brew in cafés?

Batch brew is drip coffee in bulk: café brewers make a large batch at once into an urn or airpot. The Ministry of Coffee suggests about 55–65 g of coffee per litre, coarsening the grind slightly as the dose goes up. The Ministry of Coffee’s Moccamaster recipe uses 100 g of medium-ground coffee with 1.5 litres of water, and the water has run through the coffee after about 5 minutes.

A short history of the drip coffee maker

• 1908: Melitta Bentz patents her paper coffee filter system on 20 June, the basis of the Melitta pour-over.
• 1954: Gottlob Widmann’s Wigomat, patented in Germany, is usually credited as one of the first electric drip coffee makers. CoffeeGeek notes it wasn’t a commercial success.
• 1968: the Technivorm Moccamaster goes on sale; CoffeeGeek argues it was the first automatic drip brewer to use a Melitta-style cone filter.
• 1971: Mr. Coffee is developed in Cleveland, by a company hoping to make the percolator obsolete. By April 1974 it had sold a million machines, about 10% of the US coffee-maker business, and made the drip machine mainstream.
• By 2014: the SCAA calls its Certified Home Brewer programme for drip machines “longstanding” as it renews its testing partnership with the European Coffee Brewing Centre (see SCA-certified brewers).

General guidance only. Unplug the machine before cleaning it, never run it without water, and follow the maker’s instructions for descaling.

Drip machine vs other methods

• SCA-certified home brewers: drip machines tested to brew to the Golden Cup standard.
• Melitta: the hand-poured filter the drip machine automates.
• V60: a pour-over with full control.
• Stovetop percolator: the pot Mr. Coffee set out to replace.

Explore every pour-over method in the pour-over chapter.